You’re taking care of your skin and drinking plenty of water, yet the pores on your nose are still clogged. Sometimes all of the exfoliating and washing of our faces doesn’t seem to be enough. It’s important to know why our pores get clogged in the first place. Our skin produces a Sebum, which is an oily mixture that’s actually good for the skin. It keeps it healthy and feeling soft. It can however become a problem when dead skin cells attach to the sebum and clog your pores. This usually happens to those of us with oilier skin, but it can also happen when you apply lotion to your face. Our faces our more sensitive than the rest of our bodies and can’t handle the thickness of lotions. Applying a light moisturizer or serum can prevent clogged pores. Touching our faces too much and sweating can also clog pores.

Don’t freak out there is something you can do at home to unclog those bad boys. I love using Biore’s Nose Strips. The strips are placed on your nose and dampened with water. After 10 to 15 minutes you remove it and will be amazed by the results. You can actually see the dirt and blackheads that have been removed from your nose on the strip. Continue this routine once or twice weekly and soon you’ll be seeing less and less gunk on the nose strips. Biore also makes the same type of strips for your forehead. If you think your clogged pores are more serious check out OnlineAcneRelief for more solutions.

If you’re having trouble figuring out how to use the nose strips or just want to check if you’re doing it right check out Biore’s website for a step by step video.

How often do you clean your makeup brushes? Do you clean them at all? Did you even know you were supposed to clean them?

Cleaning your make-up brushes in an essential part of keeping your skin clear. Bacteria builds up on the brushes if they aren’t cleaned once in a while. That bacteria ends up on your face every time you apply make-up. Think of the hair on the brushes like the hair on your head. You wouldn’t go your whole life without washing your hair, and neither should your brushes. Determining how often to clean your brushes depends on how frequently you use them. Cleaning them every two weeks will keep them bacteria free.

Choosing what to clean your brushes with is simple, since you can use any brush cleaner. Baby shampoo is also an option. It’s sensitive enough to clean make-up brushes without damaging them. Using warm water rinse excess make-up from the brushes and then lay them flat to dry.

Sephorasells daily brush cleaners for those of you who don’t want to wait every two weeks to clean them. Just spritz the cleaner on the brush and let it dry for 3 to 5 minutes. If you don’t want to use a spritzer try their Make Up Brush Cleansing Wipes. It cleans the residue from the make-up and dries in up to three minutes.

The winter can be brutal on our skin, but there are things that can be done at home to help maintain its glow. Exfoliating the skin removes the dead skin cells from the top layer so that new skin can grow. Exfoliating should be an important part of your routine at home, because it makes everything else you use that more effective. If you have acne for example, removing the unneeded dead skin from your face will help the serums, moisturizers, or any treatments you use penetrate the skin quicker. This will make any product used for acne more effective. Exfoliating at home is an easy process and only has to be done weekly. One thing to keep in mind however is that you need different exfoliators for your body and face.

For the body I use the body scrub Tropic from Sabon. Not only does it smell delicious, but it also leaves your body feeling silky soft. The best part is that the softness really lasts. The scrub is made up of essential oils that moisturize the skin and salt from the Dead Sea. This particular scrub is also great for people with skin conditions like psoriasis andeczema. After using it your skin will feel so soft that you wont even need to apply moisturizer.

For the face you can find a daily exfoliator like philosophy’s The Microdelivery Exfoliating Wash. It’s strong enough to get rid of the dead skin, but mild enough to be used daily. A great thing about this facial scrub is that it doesn’t dry your skin out. Another effective facial exfoliator is the Face Polisher from Sabon. It has tiny scrubbing beads, lemon and mint oils. The lemon is good for evening out the skin tone, and mint is a natural antiseptic. You face will feel so refreshed and clean afterwards.

One more part of the body you can exfoliate are the lips. The winter can make our lips dry and flaky. Philosophy’s Kiss Me Exfoliating Lip Scrub can keep your lips smooth and moisturized all winter long.After a couple of weeks of exfoliating you’ll notice a positive difference in your skin.